I would have to disagree. From our four years in medical school to at least our three years of residency, we are taught how to scrutinize the medical literature to insure it is evidence based. We learned that a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study was the best and that the NEJM was to be more relied upon than an Internet blog.
I must admit I know little about Purdue, but I would say it is ALL on US if there is bad subscribing. How many of us read their brochures and journal articles they leave on our desk to see if their reasoning is flawed?
I am sure it happens, but I just don't think drug reps come around knowingly telling you something false. I would think we would be rather skeptical of anyone who advertises their own product. When I see an ad about HP or Dell or if a rep for either company came around, I would take their spiel with a grain of salt. I must get brochures from DSL, Satellite and cable twice a month, each sounding better than the other. Ultimately, it is up to me to do the research as to which is which.
Maybe Oxycontin did move narcotics from a specialty practice to primary care. It has its place in primary care. Maybe that was a good thing. Too often, hospitals were prescribing Morphine 1 mg every four instead of 2 mg every two for fear of creating addicts while the patient lay there in pain.
We had a surgeon at my hospital who refused to write for narcotics on a post-op patient because he was an abuser on the outside. Well, that was abuse.
I believe everyone welcomed Oxycontin, because it was supposed to be much less addicting or easy to abuse. They were wrong. We were wrong. The same as when we thought Strattera would replace Ritalin.
I just can't see how we can blame Purdue. He just marketed it. We bought it.
